


Beam Me Up, Georgie!

by arboreal_overlords, rainbowninja167



Category: Wooden Overcoats (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, CMO Antigone, Chief Engineer Georgie, Enemies to Lovers, Going Boldly Where No Coffin Has Gone Before, M/M, Madeline is some sort of space otter, Science Officer Rudyard, one of us is a proper star trek fan and one of us has seen one (1) movie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26169550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arboreal_overlords/pseuds/arboreal_overlords, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowninja167/pseuds/rainbowninja167
Summary: Rudyard Funn, Antigone Funn, and Georgie Crusoe used to be the highest-ranking officers aboard the U.S.S. Piffling. They aren’t anymore.
Relationships: Eric Chapman/Rudyard Funn
Comments: 17
Kudos: 53





	Beam Me Up, Georgie!

Antigone Funn was one of Starfleet’s youngest Chief Medical Officers in history. Many liked to attribute her success to her unusual cultural upbringing. When she and her twin brother Rudyard were four, their parents, Ensigns Funn and Funn, were both casualties of friendly fire between Vulcan and Earth during a training exercise. In their regret over the error, Vulcan offered to foster the two with a Vulcan family as an act of reparation. Ten years later, the teenage Funns appeared in the Starfleet Academy headquarters with notes pinned to their lapels. 

“HUMANS UNSUITED TO VULCAN LIFE,” the notes read. “MANY EMOTIONS. PLEASE ACCEPT THE FUNNS FOR STARFLEET ACADEMY. WE HAVE DONE ALL WE COULD.” 

Despite the fatalistic tenor of the note, Antigone and Rudyard Funn quickly attracted attention in the Starfleet Cadet campus. Antigone was a model pupil, albeit one who didn’t quite understand the concept of socializing. Indeed, she spent so much time in the medical school’s morgue that many professors forgot that she existed. At the end of her program, she emerged from the morgue with a gasp and a highly respected thesis on the cryogenic preservation of human bodies. 

On the other hand, Rudyard Funn designed four different odd and highly illegal research projects in his tenure as a cadet. Three were patently useless and caused various crises around campus, from the spill of an acid that melted fabric to an avian flu that caused campus birds to attack the hair of random passersby. The fourth project fundamentally changed the field of xenobiology. Rudyard’s professors, wearing half-dissolved pants and protective helmets, had to grudgingly pass him. 

Once they graduated and were eligible for active service, the Funns were considered a package deal, despite their vehement objections to the contrary. Rumour had it that the Starfleet captains drew straws to decide who would have to oversee the twins - a rumor that Starfleet strongly denied. However, given that Captain Desmond, who notoriously missed Starfleet Command meetings, ended up taking them onto the U.S.S. Piffling, there may have been some truth to the rumors. 

The two probably would have been quietly strangled by their peers if it hadn’t been for Georgie Crusoe, the chief engineer of the Piffling. The Funns and Georgie had become unexpected friends during an incident involving Georgie’s experimental transwarp beaming technology and Captain Desmond’s basset hound, Snorkle. 

Rudyard Funn had been sitting in a shadowed corner of the mess hall, sipping at a hot water, when a hand landed heavily on his shoulder. He started, spilling some of the water onto his uniform, and looked up. Commander Crusoe looked unusually frazzled; her engineering goggles were pushed up into hair that surrounded her head like an untidy halo. “You’re Rudyard Funn, yeah?” she asked. 

“Yes?” Rudyard replied uncertainly. Conversations that began this way usually ended with someone swearing a blood oath against him, or throwing him into a sack. 

“Come with me right now,” Georgie said, and Rudyard immediately fell into step behind her, sack-less but still bemused. Thirty minutes later, he was having an awkward conversation with a misplaced basset hound while his sister paced angrily behind him. 

“Now see here,” Rudyard said through the comms, “I know it's an undignified name, but that’s something you’ll have to take up with the Captain when you’re back on board. More importantly, can you describe your surroundings?” He listened intently at the barks that responded tinnily through the speakers. 

Rudyard had emerged from his childhood on Vulcan with the unexpected talent of communicating with animals. He claimed that it was a specialized version of the Vulcan Mind Meld. Antigone would then roll her eyes and counter that Rudyard was in no way biologically Vulcan, and his talent was more likely derived from the fact that “no higher life forms _want_ to talk to you, Rudyard.”

“Try asking her what she smells instead of sees,” Georgie pressed Rudyard from her station. “Basset hounds are great at navigation through scent.” 

“Why am I here again?” Antigone asked sharply. “I could be saving _real_ lives down in the med bay instead of risking suspension with you two.”

“Antigone, Snorkle is a valued member of the Piffling,” Rudyard said, looking wounded. “Don’t listen to her, she’s just bitter to be above ground,” he added into the comms. Antigone rolled her eyes and muttered something about outer space and the lack of distinction between above-ground and underground in an intergalactic ship.

“You’re here because we need someone to heal Snorkle in case anything goes wrong,” Georgie said, fiddling with the landing pad of her transwarp beaming system. “The important thing is that Desmond _never find out that this happened_.”

“Christ alive, I’m a doctor, not a veterinarian,” Antigone snapped. 

“It’s a carbon-based life form from Earth, stop splitting hairs, Antigone,” Rudyard muttered, still playing with the comms and listening intently to the barks and whimpers coming out of it. “Oh thank God, I think she’s on a beach in Risa. From her descriptions, it’s got to be somewhere near Temtibi Lagoon.”

“Cheers, Snorkle,” Georgie said brightly, programming her system to start sweeping the beaches. “At least I sent her somewhere nice. Wish we could switch places, I could do for a day at the beach myself.” Rudyard and Antigone both visibly shuddered at the prospect. 

Several tense minutes later, a disgruntled basset hound appeared in Georgie’s beaming platform. 

“Well, Antigone,” Rudyard announced, gesturing to Snorkle. “Off you go.”

“What do you mean, _off you go_?” Antigone demanded. “It’s a basset hound, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen one before.”

“She’s got four limbs and some organs, doesn’t she? Just do some doctoring!”

Snorkle barked at Rudyard again. 

“You know, for someone who just took a transwarp trip for the second time in recorded history, I think you’re being a little single-minded,” Rudyard responded shortly. “Snorkle’s not a great name, but it’s hardly a war crime now, is it?”

Antigone, who was tending to Snorkle despite her previous objections, shone a pen light into the basset hound’s ear and snorted. “Rudyard, you cried for hours when those Vulcan students pointed out that the extra ‘n’ at the end of Funn likely signalled that you were not, in fact, an amusing companion.”

“That was _bullying_ , Antigone,” Rudyard hissed. “Bullying with _etymology_.”

Georgie would have probably stood there for longer, sagging with relief and slight disbelief at the scene unfolding in front of her, if she hadn’t heard the distant sound of Captain Desmond’s whistling echoing down the corridor. “Shut it, both of you,” she ordered, and scooped Snorkle off the landing pad. 

“Hello, Georgie,” Desmond said warmly, smiling absently at the Funns. 

“Good afternoon, sir,” Georgie said promptly.

“How is that transwarp beaming thingy coming along?” he asked absentmindedly, gesturing at the slightly smoking panel that Georgie, Antigone, and Rudyard were all trying to hide with their bodies. 

Georgie smiled benignly as Antigone kicked her medical kit behind a nearby pillar. “Just sorting out the last few details, sir,” she said.

Rudyard coughed. “Sir, I’d like to make note that Snorkle objects strongly to her name. She finds it infantilizing and contrary to her personality. ”

“Oh go away, Rudyard,” Desmond said tiredly. “Come, Snorkle.” The dog trailed behind a departing Desmond obediently after making a few pointed woofs in Rudyard’s direction. 

“Well, I _tried_ ,” Rudyard sighed, throwing his hands up in the air and sitting down with a frustrated sigh. 

Even then, Georgie might have written off her rushed encounter with the Funn siblings as a single odd encounter, had Rudyard not rescued an underdeveloped sehlat two months later from an illegal experimental genetics lab on what was supposed to be a routine fuel run. 

The sehlat was tiny— barely bigger than a dog— and behaved with panicked jumpiness, cowering behind a console whenever possible. 

“This is Madeline,” Rudyard said casually, completely covered in a substance that looked like tree sap and smoking slightly. “She’s interested in observing us.” 

Antigone picked up a spectrometer slowly and hovered it next to Rudyard’s head, looking with trepidation through the screen. “What exactly are you covered in?” she asked. Rudyard batted her hand away, and then unsuccessfully tried to shake off the sap that was coating his arm. 

“Never mind. The important thing is, Madeline needs access to the ship’s log and some modified writing implements. Georgie, I’m sure you’ll be able to whip up something.” 

“I’m the chief engineer, Rudyard. I don’t make pencils for oversized guinea pigs.” 

The sehlat made a series of high squeaking noises. Rudyard nodded gravely. “Yes, I agree that was uncalled for.” 

* * *

Even before Rudyard’s accidental run-in with black market scientists in Nibiru, everyone knew that Commander Crusoe was the real authority behind the U.S.S. Piffling. While Captain Desmond genuinely cared about his crew and had weathered several skirmishes in his youth, he spent most of his days walking amiably around with Snorkle and delivering cheerful speeches, delegating the paperwork to a revolving door of overstressed secretaries. “I’ll tell you what,” he’d say in a conspiratorial, friendly tone. “Let’s run that one by Commander Crusoe. I like to make sure my officers are in the loop, you know.” 

Commander Crusoe was great at secretly running a starship - perhaps _too_ great, as the crew of the U.S.S. Piffling soon learned.

It had started with another one of Rudyard’s inventions, which he was absolutely _confident_ would work! No way it could fail! (Rudyard had never seen the old Earth holo _The Titanic_ , and unfortunately for him, it showed).

“Well, what does it do?” Georgie had asked sensibly.

“Er,” Rudyard had offered.

It turns out that what Rudyard’s newest invention did, when turned on with a flourish and a glower at Antigone (who had done Rudyard the great favor of leaving Medical, all the better to laugh at him), was to explode in the face of a certain Chief Science Officer who had been thundering over to Rudyard’s lab bench to shout at him.

“Ah. Well,” Rudyard had said, blinking down at his now-unconscious superior officer. “You see, Georgie? This is very clearly a powerful weapon. Let’s bring security down here to demonstrate it!”

“We absolutely should not do that,” Georgie had said. “Antigone, help me get him to Medical.”

“ _You should spend more time in the rest of the ship, Antigone. Why don’t you take a holiday, Antigone. You’re frightening the patients, Antigone_ . And now it’s: _carry a body back to Medical, Antigone_. I wish you’d all make up your bloody minds!”

And so, if it hadn’t been for Rudyard, Commander Marlowe would not have woken up with a concussion and demanded an immediate transfer off the Piffling, nor would they have been en route back to the nearest Starbase, and so they never would have come across the U.S.S. Buran in a firefight with two Klingon Warbirds.

In the end, they were cornered (to the extent that one could be truly cornered in space).

“Bit of a sticky situation, isn’t it?” Desmond said with alarming cheer. “Ideas, anyone?”

“Oh, we’re going to die,” Antigone said matter-of-factly, staring into the magnificent vista of the Warbirds’ engines. “Unless Rudayard has, by some miracle—”

“Oh, have I,” said Rudyard, suddenly reappearing on the deck and looking extremely confident for someone who was moments from atomic disintegration. “Despite the unfortunate effects that my experiments had on Commander Marlowe—”

“Rudyard,” Georgie interrupted, not sounding particularly upset about it, “he did lose several toes.” 

Rudyard was pressing buttons determinedly on the console while the officers of the main deck shared alarmed glances. “It’s going to work!” he said insistently. “Madeline said that this formula was foolproof. Well, at least that’s what I think she said—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake Rudyard,” Antigone snapped. 

They all suddenly quieted when a beam of light shot from the box that Rudyard had attached to the console, covering the guns of the Klingon Warbirds with some sort of gummy string that instantly blocked and disintegrated their guns with a sudden web of porous blue fizz. 

“Told you it was a weapon,” Rudyard said smugly.

“Stuff it, Rudyard.”

But it was only after the deadly fight-to-the-death with sworn enemies of the Federation that the _real_ tragedy happened.

Starfleet Command was apparently so impressed with their courage and quick-thinking in saving the Buran, that they promoted the whole lot of them. Rudyard became both the Chief Science Officer and the XO. Doctor Edgware had a nervous breakdown, leaving Antigone as the Chief Medical Officer.

And worst of all, Desmond was promoted to Admiral, leaving the U.S.S. Piffling without a captain.

—-

Rudyard Funn, Antigone Funn, and Georgie Crusoe used to be the highest-ranking officers aboard the U.S.S. Piffling. They aren’t anymore.

“I still don’t know why _I_ couldn’t have been captain,” Rudyard said crossly. He made another attempt to flatten his Vulcan-style fringe, which had a tendency to curl under extreme stress (Georgie would say it was behaving exactly as ordinary curly hair _will_ do, when trimmed in the dark with garden shears, but Rudyard was fairly confident in his Anxious Follicle hypothesis. The study of which was now in clinical trials).

“The crew hates you,” Antigone pointed out absently, too busy staring at the transporter bay to put in her best effort. “They would have mutinied within minutes.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything!” Rudyard snapped. “This isn’t a democracy.”

“Oi, shut up you two, I’m beaming the captain on board,” Georgie interrupted. She stuck her tongue between her teeth and fiddled with several knobs on the transporter console, and soon the shimmer of the transporter beam had resolved itself into the human embodiment of _command gold_ . His uniform was bright and pressed, his hair _gleamed_ in a way that no hair should react under fluorescents, and his striking blue eyes surveyed the assembled officers of the Piffling as though he were gearing up to lead them into a wholesome Hardy Boys adventure.

Rudyard despised him.

“Hello, all!” Captain Eric Chapman announced, in a tone of voice typically reserved for someone saying “bracing morning for a swim!”

“I couldn’t be happier to be assigned to the Piffling,” Chapman continued, apparently deciding he hadn’t tormented them enough with his very evenly spaced teeth. Who even _had_ such perfect teeth, it was unnatural. Unless, of course, Chapman was secretly from Bopac III, which would also explain his overwhelming _shininess_ , and would mean that Starfleet had been infiltrated by a very devious _spy_ , and as Chief Science Officer, Rudyard really was duty-bound to follow up on this _fascinating_ theory, and –

“…and I really think that if we all work together and try our hardest, we can make this the best ship in the ‘Fleet. So, what d’you say?”

There was a beat of silence where Georgie stared at Chapman incredulously, Antigone looked dazed, and Rudyard schemed. Madeline buried her head in her notes and tried not to laugh. This was going to be a best-seller.

“ _Wow_ ,” Antigone breathed, just as Georgie spun around and walked straight out the door.

They could hear her getting further down the hall, still muttering direly to herself: “Well thank God you’ve sorted us out. I would’ve let the ship just fall out of the sky, but if you’d rather I _tried my hardest_ …”

“I think that went quite well!” Chapman said cheerfully.

“Yes, you’d like us to think that, wouldn’t you,” Rudyard hissed.

“I would!” Chapman responded, either choosing to ignore Rudyard’s tone or missing it entirely. 

* * *

Georgie had spent the rest of the day strategically deconstructing some of the Piffling’s less legal engine modifications, because their new captain seemed like the kind of person to bluster his way into a lady’s warp drive without having the slightest clue what to do once he got there. And she’d rather not be court-martialed just because Captain Chapman got a little squeamish around some of her slightly more experimental plasma injectors.

And then, of course, she’d had to extract a printing press that _someone_ had wedged up a Jefferies Tube because “we may participate in this hierarchical, quasi-military institution but the voice of the people still cries for revolution, miss,” so all in all, it had been a trying day (she did, however, keep some of the more incendiary pamphlets to stick under Captain Chapman’s door).

The last thing Georgie wanted when she dragged herself into the officers’ mess later that day for a cup of tea was to find Captain Chapman in intimate conversation with Lieutenant Templar at one of the corner tables.

Gross.

“What’re you two doing?” Georgie slammed her tea down on the table between them, and shoved her way into the seat next to Chapman’s. If _she’d_ had to listen to an hour-long lecture on antiauthoritarianism before dinner, _nobody_ deserved to have any fun tonight.

“I’m conducting informational interviews with members of the crew!” Chapman said brightly. “Lieutenant Templar has been extremely helpful.”

“Yeah I’ll bet,” Georgie mumbled with a wince. She was remembering what her Gran always said about reaping what you sow.

“Sorry, what’s that?”

“I said it looks to me like you’re having dinner.”

“Well, sharing food can help break down barriers to communication,” Chapman explained virtuously, while Lieutenant Templar glared murderously at Georgie over his shoulder.

“Never heard it called _that_ before.”

“I know.” Chapman gave her an uncertain look. “Because I only just said it. Care for a biscuit?”

“I don’t think you want to hear what I’ll communicate once my barriers are broken,” Georgie warned, but took the biscuit anyway. No reason to let a good biscuit go to waste, and it _was_ good.

Chapman beamed. “I made them myself. No replicated ingredients. I just feel like it’s cheating, otherwise.”

“You would,” Georgie said, through the remnants of her biscuit. She eyed Chapman, who was practically vibrating in his seat with the suppressed urge to ask her how she liked it. She sighed. It _was_ a great biscuit.

“Thanks, Captain Chapman,” she finally allowed. “These are really good.”

“Oh please.” Chapman waved away the praise modestly. “Captain Chapman was my father. Call me Captain Eric.”

Ugh. Georgie immediately regretted softening for even an instant toward his stupid sad face.

“Yeah, I won’t be doing that. Ever.” She took another biscuit. To compensate her for pain and suffering accrued.

“Well I think Captain Eric is--” Lieutenant Templar began, just as Rudyard stomped into the mess and Chapman swiveled his entire chair to follow his progress across the room.

“That’s Commander Funn, isn’t it?” He said...breathlessly? _What_ was going on? “We didn’t have a chance to be properly introduced before.”

Georgie thought that this was a very diplomatic way to describe Rudyard shouting about duplicitous hair and then barricading himself in his lab to sulk. Apparently he was willing to come out at night for food - like a spiteful raccoon.

“Yep. That’s Rudyard.”

“They let me pick my next post, you know,” Chapman said absently, still staring at Rudyard, who was currently repeatedly pressing a button on the replicator and scowling when it didn’t work. Georgie rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t believe the Piffling was still available, so of course I snatched it up - is it true Commander Funn once hid in a cave for three weeks rather than break the Prime Directive?”

Georgie thought about it. Perhaps, if you tilted your head and squinted, that time Rudyard had gotten lost on a planet without his communicator _could_ be described--

But Chapman was still going, more eagerly now that Georgie hadn’t stopped to contradict him.

“Is it true that Commander Funn once negotiated a peace treaty between two planets?”

Georgie had been the one to actually negotiate the treaty. Although, in Rudyard’s defence, he’d started the process by giving the two implacable enemies a common ground to work from: they both found that they hated him more than they hated each other.

“Is it true he figured out how to send the entire ship back in time?”

That, Rudyard had done, although it had only been for a few hours, and by accident. When they’d tried to replicate the effect, they’d ended up in the same time, but a lightyear away and suddenly in possession of multiple sehlat clones - fanged bears that Rudyard insisted were traditional pets on Vulcan. According to Rudyard, his invention worked perfectly as long as you discounted that little detour with the time travel, and everyone had mostly forgotten about it.

Although apparently, not Chapman.

“I’ve been reading the Piffling logs since I was stationed on the Farragut,” Chapman concluded, still staring at Rudyard like he was a rockstar instead of a small man currently losing an argument with a tea dispenser.

“Hey, Captain Eric,” Georgie drawled, because it had been a very long day, and she deserved this. “Maybe you should offer Rudyard a biscuit. Bet he’d love to dismantle some communication barriers with you...”

“Oh, well I really couldn’t,” Chapman said with incredibly transparent bashfulness, since he was already getting out of his chair and crossing the room. Georgie swiveled in her chair and waited with bated breath.

“Commander Funn,” Chapman said, clearing his throat nervously and putting his arms behind his back. “We weren’t able to speak earlier, but I just wanted to say how much I—”

“Chapman,” Rudyard said ominously. “So we meet again.”

“Right, that was just what I was saying,” Chapman said. 

“Now look here,” Rudyard barreled onward, gesturing menacingly with a dry tea sachet. “I know exactly what you’re doing here, Chapman.”

“You do?” Chapman asked, blushing. “Sorry— to clarify, do you mean _here_ here in the officer’s mess or here on the Piffling?”

“Oh my god,” Georgie said quietly. This was going to be even more entertaining than she had expected. 

“No, I assume that you’re in the mess to get a hot beverage,” Rudyard said impatiently. “But your larger mission is clearly some sort of nefarious coup d’etat.”

Chapman stared at him for a moment. “Sorry, a coup d’etat?”

Rudyard rolled his eyes. “Honestly Chapman, it’s French for someone taking something that doesn’t belong to them.”

“I know what coup d’etat means,” Chapman said, his tone slipping from nervous to irritated. “Which is _not that,_ by the way—”

“Don’t try to distract me with semantics, Chapman.”

“I’m not!” Chapman snapped. “I’m pointing out that I can’t enact an illegal seizure of power on a ship that _I’m already Captain of_.”

“In name only, Chapman, in name only.”

“Right,” Chapman said, puling his tone back into managed patience. “Except that the name part is bestowed by official military decree of the United Federation of Planets.”

“What, _all_ of them?” Rudyard muttered derisively. Chapman sent a beseeching look over to Georgie, who smiled encouragingly at him over her tea. 

“Look, Commander Funn,” Chapman began. “I realize that many might see my promotion within Starfleet as nepotism, given the career of my father—” 

“—Oh, are you from those Chapmans?” Rudyard cut in, looking genuinely surprised. “I thought they had perhaps grown you in a lab or something.”

“—but I thought that we would have that in common,” Chapman said, now flushing defensively. “I know that your late parents were also memorialized with some renown.”

“You know, I think your mother threw a wrench at my head once, when I was an ensign,” Rudyard mused, ignoring him.

“Yes,” Chapman said through gritted teeth. “ _I’m beginning to see why_.”

“Anyway, I wanted to say that I’m onto you. I know your plan.”

“You _know my plan_?” Chapman asked in disbelief. “Rudyard, everyone knows my plan, I clearly outlined my nine point vision board for the group core competencies of the U.S.S. Piffling in my opening speech.” 

Rudyard grimaced. “No, painful as that was, I mean your real plan. Your path toward uncompromising tyranny.” 

Chapman gave a fake laugh, trying to conceal a bewildered irritation that looked like the first genuine emotion that had ever registered on his face. “I get that new management is difficult Rudyard,” he said. “Especially since you were so close to Desmond.”

Desmond had once shut Rudyard in an airlock pod for twelve hours after he spilled a chemical that melted clothes across the floor of the mess hall, but this didn’t seem like the time to volunteer that information. 

“Change is always a challenge,” Chapman continued with forced brightness, “but I want to create a community in which my officers are empowered to think outside of the box. Really synergize our energies, so to say.”

“Chapman,” Rudyard said savagely. “If I’m going to think outside of the box, it’s because I’m going to design a box that doubles as an impenetrable prison and then _throw you in it_ , and when you call for my help with your last dying breaths I’ll say ‘ _I’m sorry I can’t hear you, I’m thinking outside of the box_ ’ and I’ll listen to you _perish_.”

Georgie quietly coughed her tea onto the floor and turned away from the two men so that they couldn’t see her laughing. 

“Ah, I see,” Chapman said, though he clearly didn’t. “Biscuit?”

“Damn your biscuits to _hell_ , Chapman,” Rudyard spat, and marched out of the room in a blaze of fury. Chapman looked almost pathetically confused and flustered. 

“Maybe he’ll sign your copy of the Piffling Logs if you ask really nicely, sir,” Georgie said cheerfully on her way out. “Cracking biscuits, I’m going to take one more for the road.”


End file.
